1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording system in which additional pattern information other than those stored in the recording apparatus can be added by detachably attaching information memory means to the recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Prir Art
In usual printers, the recording of letters and symbols, hereinafter collectively called characters, is achieved by forming a group of dots on a sheet by activating a printing head according to dot information specifically correcponding to each character. The dot formation is achieved for example by a thermal recording method utilizing heat generation by resistors, an ink jet recording method utilizing ink emission from nozzles, or a wire dot recording method in which wire ends strike the recording sheet.
The characters are present in various styles such as gothic, Italic, courier etc., and the change of type style is often required in recording.
Conventionally, the style selection is achieved by storing data of plural styles of a same character in a read-only memory and by reading, when a change in print style is required, data of a desired style through a change in the program.
In such conventional method, however, printing other than in a standard style, requiring a change in the program or the use of a different program, is rather tedious and is not available to those not familar with the software.
Also, the printer, connected as an output unit to a host computer or the like, has been designed to receive code data supplied from such host computer and convert the code data by a character generator into character patterns for recording by the recording head. Consequently code data cannot be recorded if the corresponding character pattern is not stored in the character generator. Such drawback can be prevented by increasing the memory capacity of the character generator, but such increased memory capacity significantly elevates the cost of the printer.